Hello everyone! I hope you had a great week!

As you could read in my last report, Canal days took place in Little Falls. And on Saturday The BarRoom Neon project played in one of the parks here. Id you don’t know, BarRoom Neon Project is the band where pastor Joe and his wife play together with their friend Rory. They are about to become big in the Czech Republic. Make sure to follow them on Facebook! The Show was fantastic. They had a nice crowd and other people in the park enjoyed it.

As usuall, Sunday is church day. The local episcopalian priest father Jack is on vacation so father Joe did the mass in the local episcopalian parish. That meant he needed to leave earlier from the service. And that also meant that I will close the service. I got to experience something new. I also distributed the host for the first time. It was an interesting experience. And I also preached. I will preach the next two Sundays too.

On Monday we had morning prayer. After that we were supposed to go to the local nursery home but the informed us they are in quarantine because of some stomach infection. So we were free for the day. Tuesday was also free. So that meant reading and binga watching TV series. I’m trying to read now something about Church history. And I started also The Lord of the Rings volume 1. One of the doctors at our seminary is gonna start a “book club” that is focused on LOTR from a theological perspective, I think it is a great thing.

On Wednesday I was invited by a couple from our congregation to go with them and their grandchildren for a boat ride on the St. Lawrence river. It is a river that is also partialy a border between the USA and Canada. We didn’t cross the borders. But we saw 1000 islands and Boldt castle. It was great. I haven’t been on many cruises in my life so it was exciting and I really enjoyed it. You should visit it.

The last Sunday I preached about Jesus walking on water. This passage is very well known. Beyoncé and Eminem have a song that also contains he phrase “walk on water” but not in a relligious sense. But the story we see in Matthew certainly is. It happened after Jesus fed the multitudes. He sent them away an He sent away His disciples. After that he went on a hill and prayed. And he prayed up untill 3 am. I have noticed from this that for Jesus prayer is important. And it should be also important to us. It should be something we do all day. If we think about prayer as an interview with God, it shows us the necesity of praying in the daily life of a Christian. If ww want to have good reationships, we need to comunicate. And the same goes for the relationship with God. If we want to have a good relationship with God, we need to communicate with Him. A Christian who does not pray is not a Christian. We should pray on a daily basis. We should speak with God every day. There are many things that happen to us throughout the day, We can be thankful or maybe we can also ask questions. And He responds to us in His word – the Bible. But also in situations that happen in our lives.

What we also see is Jesus helping His disciples as they are on the ship and the wind blows against them. They maybe see that the waves are big and it is not probably comfortable. I bet they were scared. And now, they see someone walking on the water. They were scared beacause they thought it was a ghost. They couldn’t recognize Jesus, they didn’t see Him clearly. In history, we see what happenes whe people don’t see Jesus clearly. The church in the middle ages only showed Jesus as a Judge that counts every sin and punishes sinners. There was no Jesus the Savior. When people looked that Jesus will Judge them, they were in despair. The worship of Mary spread among the people of that day because they believed she could calm down Jesus because she is His mother. They made a mediator between us and Jesus. But then the reformation came and showed Jesus the Savior, the real Jesus. Not a shadow or a ghost. The gospel was back. Jesus forgives our sins. We can say that this was Jesus’s calling: “Don’t be scared! It is me.” The disciples needed to hear this. And Peter was invited to walk on water towards Jesus. He stood on water but when he looked around him, he panicked. And sometimes we Christians want to follow Jesus but it happens that we look at world around us and start to panick. Then we start to drown. We then scream to Jesus: “Save me!” And what Jesus does is that He saves. Sometimes it is hard to believe. Sometimes we look at ourselves and start to doubt Jesus. But we are reassured in the sacraments of God’s grace. Praise be to God!

Tis was my week and thank you very much for your time. I hope you liked my post and if you have any comments, feel free to comment. Untill next time!

God bless you!